After a boisterous reveal at the start of the year, Valve’s take on virtual reality had all but turned to vaporware and wasn’t expected to be seen again. However, the company’s appearance at the recent Boston VR Bender event included the newest version of their VR headset, revealing a few intriguing changes.

Valve’s original prototype relied on the use of QR codes for positional tracking, but this latest rendition had done away with that leash and now appears to make use of a two-part system of camera and display. The display itself, a notably monolithic headset, is polka-dotted, presumably not for the sake of fashion but for tracking movement, much like the motion capture tech applied to character models.

It’s clear that the company is interested in the growing VR sector, but despite their efforts Valve has yet to announce any plans to release their headset to the general public. As such we can expect to be safe from the mind-melting concept of playing Portal in virtual reality until 2015 at the earliest.